Multiple and Repeat Victimization of Women with Physical Disabilities

The main topics of this paper which was presented at the 11th European Conference on Traumatic Stress (ECOTS) in Oslo on June 15-17 2009 are to explore the concepts of multiple and repeat victimization with regard to violence suffered by women with physical disabilities; and to understand why some groups of people are victimized more frequently than others. In part one of this paper, I introduce the concept of multiple victimization, poly-victimization and repeat victimization together with a typology of violence grounded in the collective experience of the women in my qualitative study. I then illustrate my use of these concepts with some cases from this study. In part two, I explore different ways of understanding this type of violence with a specific focus on the theoretical perspective of intersectionality and on the value of using this concept in the analysis of power relations in abusive situations. I end the paper with some concluding remarks.